SpectralWing
by Bilinda Sorkin
Summary: The pyrimid is in ruins. The rains have brought terror to the powerfull jungle bats, who now cower in fright. When several newborns survive near drowning, will they be the answer? This is following the life of Pheonix, a vampyrum bat.


SpectralWing

It was raining.

The downpour pounded straight through the canopy, there broad leaves barely altering the relentless typhoon. The river had finally burst, sloping mud onto the forest floor, disturbing rodents enough to send them scurrying into the canopy and shelter. Dark shapes flited above the churning mass, flying almost to close to the sodden floor. The jagged sound of wingbeats did not disguise their worried chatter.

"Never seen such a storm-"

"What about the shrine and our-"

"-drowned in her roost-"

"-its already crumbling!"

The bats moved on, avoiding the splashes which could no longer be caught in the thick plant-life above. The Spectral bats might be one of the most powerful things in the jungle, but it did not stop their wings from being patheticly delicate to the weather. A single hard drop could damage the wing, and the merciless wind would tear right through them, sending them crashing. This was all too evident in a small, faltering shape near the back of the cluster.

"How is you mate, then? I take it she'll have the sense to huddle indoors, without anyone to bring her _food_?"

His companion turned to look at him, his ears flared.

"Why would you care, Ripp? Isn't she too powerfull for your time?" He snorted.

Ripp bared his sharp fangs, anger driving his wings ahead.

"This confounded storm will drown the newborns if our mates aren't cautious. Why shouldn't I care for our _dear _littleSpectre?" He barked out a laugh.

"You know why."

Ripp limped along, his damaged wing flailing, missing a falling vine by wingbeats.

"I already had stick slice through me! Maybe even the fauna are after me. Maybe plants just don't like me. Then again you don't. Quito?"

Quito had gone ahead, pulling himself alongside the leading female near the front of the group. Driving the way, she challenged everything in the forest, flying above the ferns and vines of the understory, daring the storm to send something, anything her way. She hardly glanced at the anxious bat flapping alongside her. Despite himself, Quito envied her brazen courage, the way she soared, black fur whipping in the wind. Much had been said about her rumors speard quikly within the colony, even though she rarely hunted with anyone except her mate. And newborn, of course.

The group soared across the soaked rainforest, taking in the rotting flesh of an approaching owl, laying sprawled on the thick bed leaves and vines which made up the forest floor. It was a pitiful sight. The wings had spread out, water pooling between the bright waterproof feathers. Its poor head had clearly been smashed in from impact, eyes tightened with fear. Must have been blown off course, Quito wondered. He felt no sympathy for the bird. It would have been a welcome meal, if a vulture had not possessively crouched above it, staring at the bats as they passed. Ugly thing. Their hunting had been interrupted by the sudden rain, and Quito's stomach clenched painfully. Birds, with thier coats, help no fear of water. He drooled slightly, thinking longingly of a plump little mant......

"The Wet Season's never flooded this far in."

Quito nearly smacked into the wide trunk of a fledgling tree out of shock. Her large eyes had swept thoughtfully towards the bird carcuss.

"I've never think I'd see one this huge and powerfull dead."

Never have I. The thought annoyed him for some reason. He'd never eaten any owl. Too fierce to be captured without risk of injury. The female must have surely hunted owl though. Driving up the strength to do so, he angled his long wings turned to her side.

"Has the pyramid ever broken?"

"I don't understand what you could be talking about! The humans constructed it for their Gods." The ferocity of this made Quito cower as he flapped. He pressed on, ,

"I'll say it again. You know its breaking down. Has always been on the edge. What about the caved in sacrificial chamber?" At once he regretted his abruptness, dropping his head and wingbeats down.

She turned and hissed, lip-curling. "Hmm. Willful I see. Do I recognize you?" She squinted at him, passing round mushroom covered orchid.

He gulped, wanting to turn back to Ripp. The small nagging bat might be annoying, but he didn't have the rights to tear out his throat at will.

"I am called Quito. My mate is Spectre." He nodded. His ears flicked hopefully upwards for her response.

It never came. The group had dived below the stone gate marking the route to the pyramid. The carvings had been worn away, leaving dribbling colours running on the monument. Half of it had crumbled recently and had squashed a mossy fern, and left it shriveled and dead. The forest had claimed it as its own, a nest of toccon fledgelings was disturbed as the cluster's intent grew, chatter ceasing as the human dirt path lead the way. Ripp had pounded his way to the front, large ears flared, mouth open, trying to see if the pyramid was stable, still standing.

Difficult to tell at first, rain, mist and jungle had swallowed the large, triangular shape. They had abandoned the shelter of the canopy, and were flying in the relatively open air of the tree tops, path twisting to avoid the worst of the continuing downpour. The entrance wasn't visible in Quito's echo location the rain clouding everything in is way. He clamped his teeth in couldn't leave if the pyramid flooded, or even...

"Don't dare think about it. It will be fine. Always has been. Its Zotz's own."

Ripp darted below him, shouting against the rain. Quito was tempted to bite through his chatty little head. He shouldn't care. Not about him and Spectre. Ripp's own mate would do all the thrashing of him. Quito had to stifle a worried bark of laughter. The cluster broke apart, streaming towards different entrances, cracks, doors, anything to be out of this. He heard worried calls, shrieks as the rain was blown though the stone hallway, yells of panic of the younger and more paranoid bats, and the shuffling of wet wings. He sped into the first chamber trying to locate the bat he sought after. Still not far in enough. The walls of the ancient hall dripped with moss and water, bats hurriedly flapping to their roosts in the drier areas under statues and platforms.

He nearly flew into her, wings parachuting backwards, halting just in time to stop her being barreled of her roost. His Spectre, his mate, was drenched and frightened like the other vampyrum like her. Quito clung onto the snaking branch which she hung onto, crawling belly up to the ceiling towards her. He hadn't even brought her meat. What could he possibly offer her? Spectre could not have flown to him, or move from her roost at all, too dangerous for her and the other mothers. She must be starving. He allowed himself to be wrapped up in her leathery wings, combing her hair soothingly. They were perched on the underbelly of a statue of a fearsome feathered snake, eyes blazing, the double headed Goddess of the reptiles. Quetzalcoatl. Zotz had been kind to the other Gods, but clearly had not cared for his favoured creatures tonight.

"I've thought of names," Spectre laughed.

Quinto brightened at the thought that his mate been thinking of such trivial things right now. His face wrinkled. He pushed his face and long black whiskers against her cheek affectionately, and she withdrew her long black wings to revel a pink, furless, newborn, clinging onto her chest.

"Maybe Ilalo? After your mother?"

Quinto shook his head. The old, wearing rock above them creaked and droplets soaked through, landing on the newborns tiny, pert nose. Several other bats dragged themselves around the wet rock, resettling, other newborns on some. Old habits never die, the vampyrum never roosted alone if they could help it. Even the royal family slept huddled together in their chamber, much to the young newborn prince's bereavement. Probably an ruminant of when they had been puny bats milenia ago, etching out a living on the tiniest of mosquitoes.

"What about Loja? Palm? Or Nectarine? I calling our newborn Nectarine if you don't pay attention, father of the season. You hear that."

Quinto could tell that Spectre's patience was wearing through, just like the lashing rain. She reallied on her mate in the month in which the newborn was to weak to do anything but hang onto her. From the moment the vampurum tasted meat they craved it when their stomachs weren't full. It took all his effort just to stop fantasizing about the dead owl just now, even with his wings plastered to his side from wet and his newborn squeaking for attention from its parents.

He shuffled guiltily and began to wrap his wing around his mates thin body, ready for sleep.

"Its to......common. Like the rodents drowned in this madness. Maybe Monsoon. Certainly fitting." Quinto replayed into her ear, sarcasm seeping through his voice.

Spectre huffed, flurrying her neck and twitched her nose twice.

"''Knew a newborn called Parch once. Born in a drought, nearly died by drowning. Fugues. Taken off by a hawk eventually." She scowled, the birds and beasts rarely dared hunting jungle bats. Not at all. They were vague myths of colder climes, where rain was as cold as the stone of the temple and the bats were ruled by some non-existent rule or enforced law or something. And they were as tiny as the humming birds. Voxzaco, that old mangy bat with breath that smelled like the rotting flesh plant kept on prattling on about them when anyone bothered enough to listen.

"I don't want a ominous name. Even for humor's sake."

Shaking, Spectre began to clean their newborn, with vigorous strokes. Once again, Quinto wished he'd been able to bring her something to comfort her, a piece of bird, a mouse, perhaps a millipede. Anything.

"I'll settle with Argentina, you can't think of....better?" The words came out slightly strangled, wrongly, as if a owl had him in its intimidating claw. Something soft and mud like had settled on his tufted ear. Dribbling down, patch's of waterlogged moss had torn free from the crannies of the burial chamber, collapsing onto the statue and into the bones underneath.

Spectre began to scurry along the decaying branch they were perched on, smoothly as possible, one claw cradling their mewling newborn. Others panicked with them and began to clamber towards the much drier rusted platform marking a human grave, the dusted underside safe from the drenched rock walls. Obeying her instincts without question, Quinto tailed after her, one wing placed comfortingly at her slender shoulder.

A crack.

The branch bending under the load and strain of struggling bats.

The vison before Quinto swam with blank whiteness and pain, a splinter jabbed into his eye.

Rock above crumbled and shooting downwards. Right on top off..

"SPECTRE!"

Spectre had shot downwards, wings folded for speed, ears pressed downwards, shooting after their bawling newborn, prized from her grasp by the shower off rubble raining down. She was somersaulting as she fell, her feeble cries bouncing about the packed burial chamber. Ripp had appeared from no where and was at her wing, desperately trying to catch the newborn in his sharp claws A flurry of wings was below, jolted from their roosts, driving deeper into the temple, to safer, underground hallways.

Silence. Silence painfully rang through the burial chamber. He didn't want to see what happened, in his heart he knew that no newborn, helpless as they were, would easily survive, or with crippling injury's. He half contemplated flying out, back into the roaring downpour. It was too cowardly, too much like the rats that invested the jungle. A deep, grating voice was at his side, suddenly, in him cutting through the pain. He grit his teeth and turned.

"Go to her."

There was no bat there. Just air. Just rock. Quinto started, and spread his wings, ready for escape. He'd gone mad. He'd fly out of this madness. Right now. Something had frozen his wings solid, plastering against his sodden sides. He tried to flap, get back into reality. His still couldn't see clearly from his damgaed eye, white spots obscuring his sight.

"I am here, Quinto."

He yelped back, wings shielding his face out of terror. It was pitch black, his wings blocking any light filtering through the temple. Safety in darkness, in the night.

"Do not cower before me. You know who I am. The newborn. She's alive. Just."

I'm dreaming. That was Quinto's first thought. All sound had been blocked, numbing the cries of bats around him, the pound of the steady rain outside. This is a nightmare, straight from the Underworld. He would wake up, warm from the midday sun, wrapped around his Spectre, newborn between them.....

"Closer to reality then you think."

He snapped his head up jolterly, the room spinning brightly after darkness. He blinked out the light, and to his horror the nightmare was true. Vampyrum crowed the floor of the bone room, others had plummeted downward, dragged wailing from their parents hold. It did happen. His newborn had fallen. The voice still boomed loudly in his ear.

"It was not my doing. I would not give help to commoners like you. Still. She survived herself. Interesting. Not uncommon though."

The voice faded into nonsense, babbling about newborns, reduced to thorty chords vibrating around his now sore neck and head. He peaked through his wings, a blurry pair of ears visable. Was it speaking?

"! You still breathing? It hurt you too? Damn this storm. Its out to get me, it is."

He'd never been glad to see that ratting little bat as much as now. Quinto unfurled his wings, knocking over Ripp in the process.

"Nice to see you and Spectre alive and flapping to." Ripp's voice sounded annoyed, but heavily grateful. Ripp's white whiskers twitched like he was going to say something, but creaking rock cut him short.

Starting again, he opened his mouth and out came nonsense, the temple crumbling before, Voxzaco preaching about the thunderous wrath of Zotz, the newborns miraculous survival down to water flooded on the bones. Never could of happened. But Spectre and his newborn were living, the nightmare had collapsed just like the fallen branch.

Paying no attention, he glided towards the horde of bats and bones. The temple had indeed flooded, the wall's paint flowing into it, tainting the colour of the bones themselves. A relived crowd fished the newborns out of the murky pond's current, pulling them out tail first, making sure the water that had saved them didn't murder them in the process. He Landed on a protuberant leg joint, thankfully clean and milky. A wash of sound came over him. He breathed a sigh of relief through his fangs.

She survived.


End file.
